Few places on Earth have experienced recent economic growth at the same level as Macau during the years of its gambling boom, which lasted for about a decade from when the first casinos after the liberalisation started to emerge in 2004. It may come as no surprise that, through gambling, the city was transformed under a broader strategy of human and urban ‘management’ in which neoliberal rationalities mediated investment, social welfare, and city development. A lot of ink has been devoted to analysing the economic, political, and social impact of Macau’s gambling governance throughout the golden years of the liberalisation and beyond, but few works have offered a platform to ‘voice’ lived experience. Drawing on ethnographic work, this article documents the reactions of Macau locals ( gentes de Macau, 本地人, bun dei jan) to the potent wave of gambling-led economic growth and urbanisation, adding a layer of novelty and complexity to this debate. It re-evaluates this incredible moment in Macau’s contemporary history under the notion of the right to the city, as argued by Lefebvre and other urban theorists (Jacobs, Harvey, Massey), who see this as the right to claim a shaping power over the processes of urbanisation that affect the ways in which cities are made and remade. Ultimately, the paper argues that, despite material accumulation, the people of Macau felt somewhat dispossessed of ways to influence the course of development and robbed of their sense of belonging and city ‘ownership’.

中文翻译：

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违背承诺的城市就是建立起来的。澳门的赌博、城市化和归属感


在澳门的博彩繁荣时期，地球上很少有地方的近期经济增长达到同等水平，自 2004 年自由化后的第一批赌场开始出现以来，持续了大约十年。毫不奇怪，通过赌博，这座城市在更广泛的人类和城市“管理”战略下发生了转变，其中新自由主义理性调解了投资、社会福利和城市发展。在开放化的黄金岁月及以后，人们投入了大量笔墨来分析澳门赌博治理的经济、政治和社会影响，但很少有作品提供“发声”生活经验的平台。本文借鉴民族志工作，记录了澳门当地人（gentes de Macau，本地人，bun dei jan）对赌博主导的经济增长和城市化浪潮的反应，为这场辩论增添了一层新奇和复杂性。正如列斐伏尔和其他城市理论家（雅各布斯、哈维、梅西）所主张的那样，它根据城市权的概念重新评估了澳门当代历史上这一令人难以置信的时刻，他们认为这是对影响城市建设和重塑方式的城市化过程拥有塑造权力的权利。最终，该论文认为，尽管有物质积累，但澳门人觉得在某种程度上被剥夺了影响发展进程的方法，并被剥夺了他们的归属感和城市“所有权”。